---
title: But cast with what skill he might, it availed nothing, for the salmo… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But cast with what skill he might, it availed nothing, for the salmon would not even look at the bait. Who acts: you, skill, salmon. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 31, sentence 43

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But cast with what skill he might, it availed nothing, for the salmon would not even look at the bait.

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**Who acts:** you, skill, salmon · **What happens:** cast, avail, not look · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, skill, salmon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:31:43
# text = But cast with what skill he might, it availed nothing, for the salmon would not even look at the bait.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc	_	_
2	cast	cast	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
5	skill	skill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	availed	avail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	salmon	salmon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
18	even	even	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	bait	bait	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cast** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with skill | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **avail** | past | skill | nothing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **look** | would | the salmon |  |  |  |  | at the bait | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at bait=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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